Mobile Solution Innovation Center at Zurich-Mobile
e-business institute to coordinate research initiatives

Zurich, Switzerland, 5 December 2000—IBM announced today a network of Mobile e-business Innovation Centers in Europe to help customers and partners develop the next generation of mobile e-business solutions. This network of centers will support service providers and software developers, bringing them together with IBM researchers, product developers, and service personnel to test and develop cutting-edge mobile e-business technologies and applications, and to provide high-level technical support.

Mobile Solution Innovation Center at Zurich

The Mobile Solution Innovation Center, based at IBM Research - Zurich, will be a forum where IBM will integrate and demonstrate the latest IBM mobile e-business offerings and partner technologies. Center staff will advise customers on how mobile e-business solutions can be implemented and will bring together researchers, product developers and services personnel in order that customers and partners can start to fully leverage IBM's world-renowned research capabilities in a wireless environment. The Zurich laboratory has a distinguished track record in mobile technology with strong links to industry, to other research organizations, and to leading customers, and it will work in collaboration with the Hursley (UK) Laboratories and France's La Gaude facility.

The new center will benefit from IBM's Industry Solutions Laboratory located at Zurich, which will provide its excellent customer briefing infrastructure. By visiting the Zurich center, or through remote demonstrations linked to the center, customers will learn about future directions of the technology, experience hands-on demonstrations of new technology, and participate in workshops to conceive solutions specific to their needs. The technology infrastructure installed in the Zurich Mobile Solution Innovation Center will be made available worldwide to IBM and Partner developers as a basis for the development of advanced customer solutions.

Mobile Innovation Centers in Finland and France

IBM also announced the Mobile Technical Innovation Center, based at its development laboratory in La Gaude, France. It will provide advanced technical support for more complex and strategic mobile e-business initiatives. La Gaude will also provide the technical expertise required to assess the viability of the inclusion of technology or products in IBM's mobile e-business solutions from other companies as well as acting as a skills center.

The Mobile Partner Innovation Center, based in Helsinki, will enable IBM's business partners to develop, test, and deliver robust and scalable mobile e-business applications. The center's staff will be dedicated to helping the most innovative of software developers and service providers develop no fewer than 150 first-of-a-kind mobile solutions in 2001 and establish a faster path to market.

The Lotus Mobile Innovation Center, also based in Helsinki, already provides a testing ground for innovative Lotus concepts and solutions for the mobile world, working in close cooperation with the new Helsinki Center and with Nokia and Ericsson product development.

Mobile e-business Institute to drive mobile research

The Mobile e-business Institute is a joint effort between IBM Research and business units responsible for mobile offerings. Its mission is to define technical strategies for the mobile arena, and to link all mobile e-business-related capabilities throughout IBM Research. The institute will support exploratory research and advanced development in the mobile arena. To do so, it will bring together some 50 researchers worldwide to work on innovative mobile technologies and solutions proposed by leading-edge customers. Solutions will focus both on mobile e-commerce as well as ubiquitous access to information for mobile professionals.